Cathy Carman

Catherine Carman (born 1952) is an Irish sculptor, noted for large figurative works, often based on the human figure, in multiple materials. Her parents ran a shop. She attended secondary school at Presentation Convent, Portlaoise and took art classes at a local VEC school. She won a substantial prize in a Clarks shoe design prize competition which enabled her to pursue third level studies at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She later studied at Dun Laoghaire School of Art and the Chiswick Art School in London.

Artistic career Carman has worked as a sculptor since college, and is best known for her large figurative works, most often in wood, stone or metal, and ceramics. She has stated that the human figure is central to her work, and her style has been described as expressionistic.

In her twenties, she primarily worked from a studio in Dublin's Henrietta Street, and from 1984 she was a founding member of what became Temple Bar Studios, before moving to a site overlooking Lough Allen with her second husband.

Carman has participated in many group exhibitions, as well as presenting solo shows, in both Ireland and abroad, including: 1984, Dublin: Project Arts Centre (solo) 1987, Dublin: Grafton Gallery (solo) 1987: Portlaoise: County Hall (solo) 1989, Glasgow: Barbizon Gallery 1990, Dublin: Project Arts Centre 1991, County Galway: Clifden Arts Festival 1999, Dublin: Temple Bar Galleries & Studio 2008, Tulsk, County Roscommon: Cruachan Aí Centre (The Nine Icons of Oweynagat, solo) 2011, Greenacres, Wexford: Wexford Opera Festival Art Exhibition (group) 2016, Castlebar, County Mayo: Linenhall Arts Centre (Diary, solo) 2019, Sligo: The Hamilton Gallery (Trans-formation, solo) 2023, Sligo: The Hamilton Gallery (Rapture, solo) 2025, Westport: Custom House Studios and Gallery (After The Storm, solo)

Holdings and recognition Works by Carman are held in many collections, including those of Ireland's Arts Council In 1992, she won the annual commission to produce seven sculptures as prizes for the Aer Rianta annual Business to Arts awards.

Carman is a member of Aosdana, Ireland's selective artists' academy, and as of 2023, of that body's co-ordinating committee, the Toscaireacht. She met writer and priest Michael Harding at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre artists' retreat in 1984, and after a year of so they established a steady relationship, and Harding has noted that Carman introduced him to the Dublin arts world. Though Harding was never formally laicised, they married in 1993 and moved to a holding in County Leitrim, by Lough Allen near the County Roscommon border. Carman and Harding have one daughter.